The Echo Of Tanit's Cries 04/19/2025

The Echo Of Tanit's Cries 

A poem
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1184895918

IN AMENDMENTThe Inner Light- a review of my favorite star trek next generation episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZpZfJC21lM

Transcript

0:00 Star Trek the Next Generation is a very 0:02 well-written show and there are many 0:04 episodes that one can point to as 0:06 examples of great storytelling but among 0:09 these there is one episode that's often 0:12 cited as the best in the series and that 0:14 episode is the inner light in which Jean 0:17 luk Bard lives an entire life in the 0:19 span of 25 minutes this episode is 0:22 Patrick Stewart's favorite and also my 0:24 personal favorite and I find myself 0:27 revisiting this episode more than any 0:29 other and every time I do I find 0:31 something new to appreciate so in this 0:33 video I'd like to break down why I think 0:35 this episode of all the incredible 0:37 stories in the TNG series stands out for 0:40 so many as its 0:44 finest so the very first thing that must 0:46 be known about the inner light is that 0:49 it was written for broadcast television 0:50 in the early 90s and that means it has a 0:53 very particular format a 1-hour slot of 0:55 Television generally had four or five 0:57 commercial breaks and this naturally 0:59 determined the shows dramatic structure 1:01 most episodes of TNG start with a short 1:03 2 to 4 minute teaser followed by the 1:05 title sequence then five dramatic acts 1:08 with commercial breaks in between total 1:10 run time is generally between 45 and 48 1:12 minutes and each Act generally ends on a 1:15 little Cliffhanger to keep the viewer 1:16 watching through the commercials it was 1:18 a simpler time before the dark ages of 1:20 multiple subscriptions now if you're 1:22 familiar with this format you'll 1:24 remember that the writers often used 1:26 commercial breakes to Signal the passage 1:27 of time in the story and in the case of 1:29 TN 1:30 this was sometimes really creative a 1:32 good example is cause and effect in 1:34 which the Enterprise is caught in a Time 1:35 Loop and keeps getting destroyed only to 1:38 restart after the break great episode so 1:40 the commercial break is actually really 1:42 integral to this format of Storytelling 1:44 and this is definitely the case for the 1:46 Inner Light in which each commercial 1:48 break is also a 5 to 10year time skip 1:51 now I think the best way to analyze any 1:53 story is to try to understand its moral 1:55 argument and for that you generally want 1:57 to look at how its main character 1:59 changes from beginning to end this 2:01 episode is about the transformation of 2:03 Jean luk peard who as we all know is the 2:06 Intrepid and somewhat guarded captain of 2:08 the Enterprise he's a man of great 2:11 stature and responsibility who has very 2:13 few personal relationships Beyond those 2:15 with his crew he seldom shows 2:17 vulnerability and his life is somewhat 2:20 lonely but by the climax of the Inner 2:22 Light he's quite the opposite he's 2:24 surrounded by family and he doesn't seem 2:26 to care about much else now in order to 2:28 cover that much ground in such a short 2:30 run time the writers not only have to 2:32 fast forward time they also have to fast 2:34 forward Picard's character development 2:36 which isn't really something you're 2:37 supposed to do as a writer characters 2:40 ideally develop gradually the whole 2:42 point is to see them grow and change in 2:44 this story we only get a select few 2:46 moments in which to Glimpse the life 2:48 that Picard is living and yet the climax 2:50 of the story is somehow very emotional 2:53 it's one of the most affecting dramatic 2:54 sequences in the entire Series so how 2:57 did they do it this episode was pitched 2:59 to the show producers by freelance 3:01 writer Morgan gendall originally as a 3:03 story in which both Picard and reker 3:06 lived an alternate life on an alien 3:07 world devastated by War the concept went 3:11 through many iterations before they 3:12 eventually settled on a story about a 3:14 civilization sending a probe into space 3:17 as a way of preserving their culture 3:19 early versions of the script included a 3:20 more involved subplot on the ship as the 3:23 crew tries to figure out what's 3:25 happening to their incapacitated Captain 3:27 but it was ultimately decided that the 3:29 episode should Focus almost completely 3:31 on the transformation of Jean Luke's 3:33 character and his relationships on the 3:35 planet Katan and I think part of the 3:37 reason that this episode works is that 3:39 it's very focused and concise not a 3:41 single line of dialogue is wasted not a 3:44 single action or scene is extraneous to 3:47 the plot and the action of the plot 3:49 articulates very clearly the moral of 3:51 the story so I think the writer is 3:53 really understood that this episode is 3:55 primarily a character study another 3:57 reason the story works is that it's 3:59 deeply relatable it deals with universal 4:01 struggles in The Human Condition it's 4:03 essentially the story of Jean Le Picard 4:05 realizing what's important in life he 4:08 begins by having to confront the fact 4:10 that a life he once knew is now gone and 4:12 that the person he thought he was is no 4:14 more that's something anyone can relate 4:16 to not because we've had our brains 4:18 hijacked by a nucleonic beam but because 4:21 life sometimes changes abruptly with no 4:23 going back sometimes the certainty of 4:26 who we thought we were falls apart in 4:28 the face of circumstances is beyond our 4:30 control the First Act of the episode is 4:32 spent with the familiar version of Jean 4:34 Luke the one who never married and who 4:36 doesn't particularly like children and 4:38 he does not accept the story that he is 4:40 a man named Cayman living on the planet 4:42 Katan and suffering from a fever that 4:44 has taken his memory he goes to Great 4:45 Lengths to methodically prove that his 4:48 new life is some kind of holc Illusion 4:50 but eventually he accepts his 4:52 circumstances and this is where we're 4:53 introduced to the episode's iconic flute 4:56 now in a story about change the flute is 4:58 the only constant and it's an important 5:00 story device beard is told that he's 5:02 been learning to play it though he 5:03 doesn't appear to have any skill just 5:05 yet and the First Act ends when Bard 5:08 notices that his wife's pendant looks 5:10 like the probe that sent him there then 5:12 we cut to the Enterprise Bridge 5:13 revealing that virtually no time has 5:15 passed since Bard was struck by the beam 5:17 and go to commercial now that's a work 5:20 of art the 99 cent Daily Double what you 5:23 want is what you get at McDonald's 5:25 today when we come back it's revealed 5:28 that many years have passed since the 5:30 previous act bicard has begun accepting 5:32 his identity as Cayman even if he is 5:34 still a bit preoccupied with finding the 5:36 Enterprise in any case he's committed 5:38 enough to his new life that he promises 5:40 to have a baby with his wife elen and 5:42 this signals to the viewer that peard 5:44 has already really moved on from his 5:46 past and he's kind of ready to fully 5:48 live as Cayman now one way that this 5:50 story stays concise is by implying 5:53 things about Picard's life rather than 5:55 showing them directly and much is 5:57 implied about Picard's character in this 5:59 second act his friendship with Bai 6:02 implies that he's integrated into the 6:04 community the intimacy and tenderness 6:06 between bicard and elen implies that 6:08 they have a strong bond despite his 6:10 apparent memory loss and the fact that 6:12 he can play frera jhaka on the flute now 6:15 means he's begun to embrace his identity 6:17 as Cayman but he's still playing an 6:19 Earth's song and so he's still attached 6:22 to his old life to some degree now 6:24 that's a really important detail that 6:26 we're going to come back to when we come 6:28 back from the break for act three we see 6:30 Cayman and elen celebrating the birth of 6:32 not their first child but their second 6:34 child who they Nam batai after cayman's 6:37 friend who passed away off screen while 6:39 you were watching an ad for Wendy's 6:41 Picard's flu playing has come along 6:42 nicely which helps you to feel the 6:44 passage of time since the previous act 6:47 note that he's no longer playing faka 6:49 this is a new song at this point you 6:51 realize that the story is skipping huge 6:53 periods of time and that Jean L Bard as 6:55 we knew him is really in the distant 6:57 past by this point and that's surprising 7:00 because it means peard isn't trying to 7:02 get back to the Enterprise and solve the 7:04 mystery of why he's on this strange 7:06 planet and yet we're reminded that for 7:08 the crew back aboard the Enterprise only 7:10 minutes have passed in fact the crew 7:12 tries to sever the connection causing 7:14 peard to collapse this is a clever way 7:16 of synchronizing these two timelines for 7:19 the viewer so that we understand just 7:21 how little time has actually passed we 7:24 skip ahead again and see that Bard's 7:26 daughter marbor is now fully grown and 7:28 she's a scientist now until this point 7:30 in the story there have been references 7:32 to some kind of drought happening but 7:34 now it's hinted that the drought is 7:36 actually an existential threat to the 7:38 planet Jean Luke is trying to convince 7:40 his daughter to spend less time worrying 7:43 about soil samples and more time with a 7:45 young man who is interested in her and 7:47 it's here with the realization that this 7:49 civilization might not have much time 7:51 left that the moral of the story begins 7:53 to emerge live now make 7:57 now always the most precious time at 8:01 this point in his life as Cayman Beard's 8:03 motivations have radically changed his 8:06 efforts as a scientist and Explorer have 8:08 yielded no fruit but for the realization 8:10 that time is running out all that 8:13 matters to him now are his relationships 8:15 with his friends and family something he 8:17 never had in his life on board the 8:19 Enterprise act three ends with the 8:21 Revelation that the Katon system was 8:23 destroyed when the sun went Nova a 8:25 thousand years ago this sets up act four 8:28 in which Jean Luke discovered that 8:29 katan's government is already aware that 8:31 the planet is doomed and that some kind 8:33 of plan is underway Picard's son now an 8:36 adult has followed in his Father's 8:38 Footsteps by becoming a musician 8:40 presumably because of his own father's 8:41 flute playing by the way this character 8:43 is played by Patrick Stewart's actual 8:45 son elene passes in a heart-wrenching 8:48 scene beautifully portrayed by Margo 8:49 Rose and Patrick Stewart does an 8:51 incredible job of making you feel this 8:54 loss even though we've had very little 8:56 screen time with these two characters 8:58 actually Patrick St steart has said that 9:00 this episode was the biggest acting 9:02 challenge that TNG ever presented him 9:05 which is really saying something 9:06 considering the sheer breadth of this 9:08 series and it's scenes like this that 9:10 really make you appreciate his 9:12 versatility as an actor and we come back 9:14 from the final commercial break for the 9:15 fifth and Final Act and Bard is very 9:18 elderly he's saddened by the fact that 9:20 his grandson has no future and he's 9:22 completely uninterested in the fact that 9:25 the community is apparently launching 9:26 some kind of Rocket into space something 9:28 that bicard of 40 years ago would surely 9:30 have been interested in the launch is 9:32 the climax of the story and it's where 9:34 the story finally reveals its moral 9:36 lesson first we get this beautiful 9:38 reveal of 9:45 Bai he explains the probe and Picard 9:48 immediately understands the mystery of 9:51 the episode has been solved but that's 9:53 not what this scene is primarily about 9:55 because there's another reveal 10:02 now I think the Brilliance of this scene 10:04 is that when peard realizes that he is 10:06 actually jeanu Picard and this probe 10:09 found him in the future that's not what 10:11 matters to him in the moment because 10:13 that would undermine the moral of this 10:15 story what does matter is elen his wife 10:19 is standing there in front of him and 10:21 that's what matters to bicard and that's 10:23 the moral of the story it's a simple 10:25 lesson that we often hear but don't 10:27 fully absorb until later in in life that 10:30 we tend to take for granted the most 10:31 important things often because we dwell 10:34 too long in the past or because we're 10:36 searching for something we can never 10:37 find all of the little moments in this 10:39 story have led to this beautifully 10:41 dramatized moral conclusion one with 10:44 real depth and 10:46 [Music] 10:49 wisdom now of course the episode cannot 10:51 end there the scene of Jean Luke waking 10:53 up on the bridge is also brilliantly 10:55 acted by Patrick Stewart who basically 10:57 wakes up from a coma and has to process 10:59 the impossibility that he's only been 11:02 unconscious for 25 minutes as always 11:05 Stuart takes this kind of far out 11:07 science fiction premise and somehow 11:09 makes it feel completely real and 11:10 believable I love this little moment 11:12 when he looks back at the bridge and 11:13 smiles which is the moment that we know 11:16 that peard as we know him is going to be 11:17 all right but of course the most famous 11:20 scene in the episode is its incredible 11:22 ending where it's revealed that cayman's 11:24 flute was stashed inside the probe and 11:27 here Patrick Stewart gives us an 11:28 incredible poignant depiction of a man 11:31 who's just been given a second chance at 11:33 life but who has also lost everything 11:36 that matters to him Picard plays Cayman 11:39 song now his only connection to his past 11:42 life just as he did with fraka when he 11:45 was on Katon this isn't just good 11:47 writing it's poetry as the music plays 11:50 we cut to the Enterprise D soaring 11:52 gracefully through the emptiness of 11:54 space peard has finally found the 11:56 Starship he spent a lifetime searching 11:58 for but in returning to who he was he is 12:02 once again alone and once again mourning 12:04 a past that he can never return to wow 12:08 it's pretty amazing to me that such a 12:10 profound bit of Storytelling found its 12:12 way onto Prime Time television in the 12:14 1990s and it's also a great example of 12:17 what Star Trek overall is capable of 12:20 when it approaches storytelling not only 12:22 as a fun adventure in outer space but 12:24 also as a deeper exploration of The 12:26 Human Condition I'd love to hear your 12:28 interpretation of this episode and other 12:31 episodes that you think reach similar 12:33 Heights check out my patreon if you'd 12:34 like to support the channel thanks for 12:36 watching and I'll see you on the next 12:37 one